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Don Saunders, vice-president of civil legal services at the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and an expert on civil legal issues, said on Thursday morning that “LSC forms the backbone of the civil justice system in the United States that serves low- and moderate-income people” and that cuts to LSC could in particular strip protections for seniors and people who live in rural areas.

“Without the federal support, we can go back to where legal aid started in this country,” Saunders said. “We’ve had urban legal aid programs for over a century. But it was the federal support that created the capacity to expand out into rural areas. So you will see a great retrenchment in that regard without federal support.